Our generation is being exposed more and more to the concept of Hero through the guise of the comic franchise and movies Super Heroes. Do the stories and context surrounding these characters of super human feats deserve a standing with our important literary heroes of old?
I think what you're really asking is are comic super heroes worth equivalents to Mythological super heroes and that's a very interesting question. You could ask the question: are superheroes are version of mythology. Are the DC and Marvel universes closer to modern day pantheons than they are to literature. – gbealer6 years ago
It's also helpful to note that the idea of heroes has changed considerably over the ages. It started with the mythologies that had gods or men with unnatural abilities (like Beowulf). Over time, literature, particularly in English, moved to stories only about knights or nobility. It wasn't until Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that we start to see stories about the average person. This dominated literature for the next few hundred years until Sherlock Holmes, who started this new almost super-man like character with his reason. Now we are back to stories focused on everyday people but on larger-than-life characters who almost always win the day. What does this say about what we value as a culture and why has this changed? – tclaytor6 years ago
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